Businesses sometimes choose to outsource certain operations outside of their core function. Indeed, it is now recognized that outsourcing certain areas (e.g., IT) can be cost effective and improve business operations. For example, many businesses outsource management of their information technology (IT) resources. By outsourcing its IT management, a business can benefit from a service provider's economies of scale, explicitly control IT expenses, and free assets for use in improving core business functionality rather than using the assets to run non-core IT operations.
Providers of outsourcing services typically contract to manage their customers' operations and business processes. Such contracts are typically designed to provide guidelines and details for addressing a customer's specific needs. Outsourced service deals typically depend on an exceptionally large number of details. Frequently, service providers have multiple customers, each having a different set of needs. For example, in order to address the unique IT needs of a variety of different customers, existing procedures generally require that a service provider perform unique service design processes for each individual customer. These individualized design processes are typically decentralized, complex, and expensive undertakings that require the management of a large number of components, dependencies and relationships. Accordingly, continuity is hindered, making the design process inefficient, labor-intensive, time-consuming, and prone to error. For example, a lack of continuity can result in a service provider contracting to provide services in an area that the service provider has no capacity for delivery.